Story

Nasreddin Hodja is what could be called a sublime idiot. He is a liar, irreverent, a disturber of peace. But he is also ingenious, free, full of wit, a timeless figure whose stories have spread and been adapted the world over. In the Sufi tradition, they were used for study purposes.

~

One day Nasrudin walked into a shop.
The owner came forward to serve him.
‘First things first,’ said Nasrudin. ‘Did you see me walk into your shop?’
‘Of course.’
‘Have you seen me before?’
‘Never in my life.’
‘Then how do you know it is me?’

~

Nasrudin’s Pointers:
I happen to be me, apparently located in, and certainly connected with this body, amongst billions, trillions of other possibilities. I am me, I can be addressed, recognised, challenged, by other beings or things without them ever having the experience of being this particular ‘me-form’ that I am. I am uniquely built. And yet how silly it would be that the consciousness that I am was just but one version of trillions of other consciousnesses. If it was, what would be the chances for these different consciousnesses — including animals’ — to be so closely related to each other, let alone meet in any deep way? Separation does’t seem to make sense. Like Nasrudin is implying, how would we even recognise each other? How would we know, when we address another person, that we could relate at all, that she is a ‘me’ in the same way that I too am a ‘me’? This simple recognition of the ‘I am’ in me, or her, or him, is the very experience of our own true nature, the oneness that reverbates in each and every human ‘I am ness’. It is said in one Upanishad, “When a man directly realises this effulgent Self, the Lord of all that has been and will be, he no longer wishes to hide himself from it.” So even though we think we are, nobody is in fact hidden, private, with his essential being. We are being in full light. We think we are hidden because of a few petty thoughts, images, or memories. But the essential and fundamental part of our being is shared. Stephen Jourdain once wrote: “Somewhere behind you, someone calls for you. Hey, John! Or Peter, or Paul, or Annie. You turn around. I give the name ‘me’ to the gentle and saintly reason of this movement. It’s as simple and luminous as that. No reason to search further. (…) To aim for another encounter other than this one is furious folly.” I had this thought one day that if a young man, a westerner, rich, educated, were to suddenly experience the being of an old, poor, uneducated Indian woman, it would take him a long time to notice that a change had occurred. Such is the power of ‘I am’, of the sense of ‘me’ in every being, of the pervasiveness of our shared being in — or more accurately said, beyond — our apparently different forms. Maybe that’s why, as Nasrudin once asserted, “everything is true”…

here was once a young girl of about ten years old, called Ishani. She lived on a mountain farm with her father. Her mother died a few years ago, and since then her father has grown bitter, hard, a gruff man. He started drinking, stopped seeing anybody, and forced his daughter to the same isolation. He wasn’t a bad man, but was saddened by the loss of his wife, and exasperated at not being able to communicate with his daughter.

Ishani had long black hair, and large greenish eyes. Martyred by her father who expected her to replace her mother with the chores of the house, she had become fearful and shy. She spoke faintly and her demeanour was hesitant. Yet, despite her misfortune, she has kept an angelic face and her innocence was intact.

Although still a little girl, Ishani was ahead of her age, because of the work and responsibility that fell on her, the suffering that went with it. As for her father, he was exasperated by Ishani’s silence and withdrawn attitude, by her lack of courage at work, her mistakes and forgetfulness. He could easily get angry, which further frightened Ishani. She no longer knew if she should hate him, submit, run away, feel guilty, or take pity on him. These two beings were caught in a spiral where each fed the other with his or her inability to break this burden. […]